3 ms·

Now, my sample size is small, but I've noticed that people react to voice interfaces with what I can only think to call "dumb foreigner syndrome" where they act

by dafoex 6y ago

Now, my sample size is small, but I've noticed that people react to voice interfaces with what I can only think to call "dumb foreigner syndrome" where they actively slow down and simplify their speech as if they were talking to someone that barely understood the language. I think this comes from familiarity with bad voice interfaces, but maybe we should indulge this expectation of basic but explicit commands, rather than rich but imprecise language. Dare I say it, but maybe we should look to the likes of Zork for inspiration for voice input.

macrolime 6y ago
I always do this. It's because there are only bad voice interfaces. Siri,Alexa etc, it's utter crap.
cxr 6y ago
> Dare I say it, but maybe we should look to the likes of Zork for inspiration for voice input. On that note, there's nothing intrinsic here, really, to why these need to be voice interfaces. Based on watching the video[1] and my experience using voice interfaces, if my hands are already on the keyboard, I'd wager I can type some of these things as quickly as if I'd spoken them and waited for the agent to keep up (even assuming they can). I'm also surprised that the Awesomebar-/Sublime Text-/VSCode-style command palette hasn't by now become a ubiquitous feature of user interfaces. I'm really surprised they haven't replaced for many use cases the combo of Bash running in a terminal emulator, given how well-known a problem it is to have to remember the args to infrequently used commands. And I'd rather type "it" (as in in delete it) than to ever type "$_" even once—let alone ask someone with a straight face to remember that this is the way to do things when you're talking to the computer. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sqKsfj8WRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sqKsfj8WRE
- dafoex 6y ago
  My comment about Zork comes from Don Gentner and Jakob Nielson's "The Anti-Mac Interface", which mentioned a simple search bar that could take more-or-less natural language instructions such as "make a new document called outlines" and the computer would make a new word processor document with that file name and maybe automatically title it for you. It sounds like it may be a similar thing to your command palette, or maybe something like the Unity HUD or those Rofi launchers I keep seeing i3 users showing off. Come to think of it, I usually type into my Google Assistant app on my phone, rather than talk to them with voice, so there's no need to make these voice exclusive.
  - cxr 6y ago
    See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox)
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  > I'm also surprised that the Awesomebar-/Sublime Text-/VSCode-style command palette hasn't by now become a ubiquitous feature of user interfaces. This makes me think of programs on the Mac[1] like Alfred and LaunchBar. While they're usually called "application launchers," in a lot of ways they're more like simple, always-available command lines. I use Alfred for launching nearly every program, but also use it to do various web searches (like "g foobar" for Google[2], "wp foobar" for Wikipedia, etc.), perform simple calculations ("=123+(45/67)"), and even actions like converting Markdown on the clipboard to BBCode or creating Jira URLs for pasting into GitHub PRs. The Mac's native Spotlight has evolved to do some of these tasks, but Alfred, Launchbar, et. al. are more powerful in part because they're more explicit -- Spotlight makes educated guesses about what you're searching for, but Alfred operates more like, well, a command line. [1] I presume programs like these exist for Linux, too, although I haven't found any when I've gone looking. The lack of one would actually be a pretty major stumbling block for me for platform switching. (As would the lack of anything quite like Keyboard Maestro, but that's a different topic, and maybe that's out there, too!) [2] Actually I'm using DuckDuckGo but still type "g <thing>" because of years of muscle memory.
082349872349872 6y ago
Has anyone yet tried programming in Inform 7 via voice?
toast0 6y ago
Most of the voice interfaces are basically Zork, but Zork came with a manual and HELP would tell you the keywords. If you ask the question in the right form, it will work, and if the form is wrong, it won't, but the forms are hard to find (and they change). People are very adaptable and computers are hard to adapt. Tell me what I'm supposed to say, and I'll say it.

by dafoex 6y ago

macrolime 6y ago

I always do this. It's because there are only bad voice interfaces. Siri,Alexa etc, it's utter crap.

cxr 6y ago

> Dare I say it, but maybe we should look to the likes of Zork for inspiration for voice input. On that note, there's nothing intrinsic here, really, to why these need to be voice interfaces. Based on watching the video[1] and my experience using voice interfaces, if my hands are already on the keyboard, I'd wager I can type some of these things as quickly as if I'd spoken them and waited for the agent to keep up (even assuming they can). I'm also surprised that the Awesomebar-/Sublime Text-/VSCode-style command palette hasn't by now become a ubiquitous feature of user interfaces. I'm really surprised they haven't replaced for many use cases the combo of Bash running in a terminal emulator, given how well-known a problem it is to have to remember the args to infrequently used commands. And I'd rather type "it" (as in in delete it) than to ever type "$_" even once—let alone ask someone with a straight face to remember that this is the way to do things when you're talking to the computer. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sqKsfj8WRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sqKsfj8WRE

dafoex 6y ago
My comment about Zork comes from Don Gentner and Jakob Nielson's "The Anti-Mac Interface", which mentioned a simple search bar that could take more-or-less natural language instructions such as "make a new document called outlines" and the computer would make a new word processor document with that file name and maybe automatically title it for you. It sounds like it may be a similar thing to your command palette, or maybe something like the Unity HUD or those Rofi launchers I keep seeing i3 users showing off. Come to think of it, I usually type into my Google Assistant app on my phone, rather than talk to them with voice, so there's no need to make these voice exclusive.
- cxr 6y ago
  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox)
chipotle_coyote 6y ago
> I'm also surprised that the Awesomebar-/Sublime Text-/VSCode-style command palette hasn't by now become a ubiquitous feature of user interfaces. This makes me think of programs on the Mac[1] like Alfred and LaunchBar. While they're usually called "application launchers," in a lot of ways they're more like simple, always-available command lines. I use Alfred for launching nearly every program, but also use it to do various web searches (like "g foobar" for Google[2], "wp foobar" for Wikipedia, etc.), perform simple calculations ("=123+(45/67)"), and even actions like converting Markdown on the clipboard to BBCode or creating Jira URLs for pasting into GitHub PRs. The Mac's native Spotlight has evolved to do some of these tasks, but Alfred, Launchbar, et. al. are more powerful in part because they're more explicit -- Spotlight makes educated guesses about what you're searching for, but Alfred operates more like, well, a command line. [1] I presume programs like these exist for Linux, too, although I haven't found any when I've gone looking. The lack of one would actually be a pretty major stumbling block for me for platform switching. (As would the lack of anything quite like Keyboard Maestro, but that's a different topic, and maybe that's out there, too!) [2] Actually I'm using DuckDuckGo but still type "g <thing>" because of years of muscle memory.

082349872349872 6y ago

Has anyone yet tried programming in Inform 7 via voice?

toast0 6y ago

Most of the voice interfaces are basically Zork, but Zork came with a manual and HELP would tell you the keywords. If you ask the question in the right form, it will work, and if the form is wrong, it won't, but the forms are hard to find (and they change). People are very adaptable and computers are hard to adapt. Tell me what I'm supposed to say, and I'll say it.